Product marketing rebates are well-known to most consumers and are an established weapon in the marketer's arsenal of methods to entice a consumer to buy a product. Traditionally, manufacturers have individually offered rebates of a predetermined cash value to consumers who buy a designated product and mail in a rebate claim that meets certain criteria. Typically, this criteria includes filling out a specific rebate form with the name and address of the consumer, enclosing a cash register receipt showing where and when the item was purchased, and sometimes enclosing the Universal Product Code (UPC) or other designated portion of the product packaging to show that the product was actually consumed. After 6-12 weeks, the consumer then receives a check in the mail from the manufacturer or from a “fulfillment house” contracted by the manufacturer to administer the rebate program.
The process of redeeming a rebate is one that can be time consuming for the consumer, requiring the consumer to keep track of register receipts and UPCs for each product, fill out forms, mail each form to a different manufacturer or fulfillment house, and cash each check that returns from the manufacturer or fulfillment house. Thus, because of the aggravation and work required to take advantage of rebates, many consumers choose not to participate in such rebate offers at all. The purchasing decisions of such reluctant consumers are therefore not influenced by rebates, much to the chagrin of product marketers.
Recently, however, certain retailers have offered to consumers the opportunity to bundle all their rebate claims in a single, easy-to-use form that can be sent to the retailer (or the retailer's fulfillment house designee) to obtain rebates for all qualified items purchased at that retailer. The rules of such consolidated rebate programs typically limit the customer to only one submission within a certain time period. Each submission generally requires the consumer to send in the retailer's pre-printed form, which identifies all the rebate offers by a specific number, along with the original cash register receipt. The consumer must typically manually fill out the pre-printed form as directed, circle the rebated items on the cash register receipt, and write each identifying rebate offer number next to each encircled item on the receipt. Then, after what is still a 6-12 week period, the customer typically receives a check in the mail from the retailer for the total amount of rebate offers fulfilled.
The consolidated rebate fulfillment method comprises a number of steps, many of which do not include the consumer. Referring now to the flowchart depicted in FIG. 1, the traditional consolidated rebate business method is outlined. First, in step 10, the consumer makes a purchase from the retailer at the point of sale (POS). Next, in step 20, the consumer checks the appropriate boxes on the pre-printed form, writes in the consumer's name and address, circles the appropriate entries on the cash register receipt, hand writes the rebate offer numbers next to those entries, and mails in the form and attached receipts to the designated address. In step 30, a fulfillment house, typically a contractor hired by the retailer to administer the rebate program, processes the paperwork received from the consumer. Finally, in step 40, the consumer receives the check.
Step 30 includes many sub-steps. In step 32, a mailroom worker at the fulfillment house must first physically open the mail. Sometimes, in order for the fulfillment house to ensure it has enough workers to meet the turnaround deadlines guaranteed to the retailer, the fulfillment house must somehow quantify the mail to be sure that it can be processed in time. Thus, the mail opening step may also include a mail quantifying step, such as a bulk weighing step where the total weight of the incoming offers is determined to estimate how many offers have been received.
Next, in step 34, an order processing worker verifies that the products encircled on the receipt match the rebate offer numbers indicated on the pre-printed form, verifies the date of the receipt is within the qualifying time period, and verifies other details (number of items purchased, etc.) to be certain that the consumer has met the initial criteria for claiming the rebate. The order processing worker may also record codes indicating the number of items requested for refund and record data for variable rebate offers. For example, if the refund amount is dependent on the number of items purchased, a code may be recorded indicating how many of the items were purchased. If the rebate amount is based on purchase price with designated minimum and maximum purchase prices, the order processing worker may write down the amount to be refunded, either the actual purchase price if within the proper range, or the minimum or maximum as specified. If the consumer does not qualify for a particular rebate for which a claim was submitted, the order processor may record a particular “unqualified” code indicating that the claim is unqualified and, optionally, a standard category of reasons why the claim is unqualified.
A data entry worker then physically enters the data contained on the form into a computer database in step 36. This data may include accounting information such as the promotion number, the voucher number, the operator number, and mail count indicators; consumer personal information such as the name, address, state, and zip code; refund information, such as the total number of items and amount requested for refund and the list of refund items; and supplemental information such as the store number and unqualified codes, if present.
Thus, after data entry, the computer database now holds such data as the name and address of the consumer, the offer numbers for which the consumer qualifies, and information relating to the number and types of items purchased. An audit step may also be performed after the order processing step 34 and/or the data entry step 36 as quality control to assure that the number of errors have been minimized. Unqualified claims, in particular, may be reviewed to assure that the claim is indeed unqualified. At step 38, the data entered into the computer is processed through a fraud detection step. Often, the fraud detection step encompasses processing the information using computer software that can verify, among other things, that the person named to receive the rebate actually lives at the address given, that only one offer per household address is being granted, and that the person named to receive the rebate is not on a list of known fraudulent rebate claim submitters. Frequently, at least one or more components of the fraud detection step may involve using a third party computer database, such as databases maintained by the postal inspection branch of the U.S. Postal Service, which may be shared or utilized by many different fulfillment houses. The process from mail opening to inputting, verifying, and checking the data may itself take several weeks, depending on the volume of mail being processed and the number of workers processing the rebate claims. The mail may also be retained in storage for a designated amount of time and destroyed per a set mail retention guideline, thus requiring storage space and destruction capabilities.
The information provided by the consumers who claim rebates can be used by the retailer, if desired. For instance, the database of consumers claiming rebates indicates the names and address of that retailer's customers who buy the type of items for which rebates were requested. Thus, the retailer can optionally use the database of names and addresses compiled by the fulfillment house to target directed advertising to these consumers. The retailer can conduct this directed advertising itself and/or can sell the names and preferences of these consumers to other marketers, advertisers, and manufacturers who may wish to target those consumers. The database of consumers and their buying habits is also available to the fulfillment house, who may also use the information, provided their agreement with the retailers or manufacturers allows them to do so.
The gathering, selling, and processing of marketing information about consumers is a very profitable industry that is only partially tapped by such rebate programs. Because typically only the rebate-specific information is entered into the customer database from the cash register receipts supplied by the consumers, the information gathered during such the rebate fulfillment process is necessarily limited. To gather information about every purchase that a consumer makes, many retailers have begun using “loyalty cards”. Loyalty cards are typically a credit-card-sized card that the consumer or cash register attendant swipes or scans into the POS cash register system prior to or during the checkout process. The loyalty card typically contains a magnetic or UPC marking that identifies the individual associated with that card, generally by a serial number contained on the card that matches to a specific customer record in a separate customer database. As a condition for receiving a card from the retailer, the consumer usually must provide their name and address, as well as other demographic information (age group, household income, family size, etc.), so that a record of personal information can be stored in a database and matched to the card serial number. To entice the user to supply the loyalty card at the POS each time the consumer purchases goods at the retailer, the retailer usually offers special discounts or offers only to card users. Through the use of a loyalty card, therefore, retailers can keep a frequently updated data record of every purchase made by a particular consumer over time.
By analyzing the data collected through the loyalty card system, not only can the retailer identify individual consumers to be targeted for special offers, but the retailer can also analyze general demographic trends among large groups of purchasers to provide feedback on how pricing or other incentives affect consumer purchasing decisions. A drawback of loyalty cards is that not every consumer is willing to participate, nor do the consumers always remember their card. In fact, many consumers know that even if they have forgotten their card, they may request a temporary card at the service desk for the purposes of receiving the special offers that day, thus bypassing the retailer's system of tying purchases to individual consumers.
Certain retailers have begun to tie rebate offers to their loyalty cards such that every qualified purchase (“qualified” meaning that the purchase has a rebate associated with it) by a consumer using the loyalty card is tracked automatically by the retailer. At the end of a designated period, the retailer then mails the customer a certificate that can be applied to future purchases by the consumer only at that retailer. In this way, the retailer has eliminated the paperwork for the consumer who shops and uses the loyalty card, thus providing an incentive for the consumer not only to shop at that retailer's establishment, but also to use the loyalty card and, once the certificate redeemable by the retailer is received, to return again to redeem the certificate.
Although the loyalty card-certificate system provides several advantages over the consolidated rebate system in the form of less paperwork for the consumer and for the retailer who coordinates the program, one of the drawbacks is that such a system relies on a loyalty card. Although consumers have come to expect that they need to carry a loyalty card to, for example, their grocery store, if every type of retailer were to require a loyalty card, the consumer's wallet or pocketbook would soon be bulging with loyalty cards for every retailer they patronize—drug store, office supply store, toy store, computer store, department store, shopper's club, and so forth. Additionally, there is some financial burden on the retailer that is inherent in the administration of a loyalty card system. Another drawback of such a system is that it automatically provides the rebate to the consumer without further interaction. There are certain advantages to retailers and manufacturers or making the consumer take some affirmative step to claim the rebate after having purchased the product.
Therefore, there is a continued need in the field to provide a method for redeeming product marketing rebates in a fast, cost-effective, consumer-friendly manner, and for allowing retailers to gather more information about their customer's purchasing habits, without requiring a separate loyalty card to be entered as part of the transaction and while still requiring some affirmative step by the consumer to claim the rebate. Furthermore, it is desirable to provide a method that it is flexible enough to accommodate multiple formats for rebate claims.